Is Homeschooling the Key to Changing an Upside Down World?

Home is important.

We know this for many reasons, but the most important reason to regard the home as sacred is because the Son of God became man and lived in a home. This forever sanctified home and family life. Jesus had a home with a mother and a father who cared for Him, nurtured Him, fed and clothed Him, and loved Him.

The Incarnation speaks to how important family and home are to human beings, because God did not have to send His Son to us as a child who grew through all stages of development. That He chose, in His infinite wisdom, to do this shows us that mothers, fathers, and home life are important, sacred, and necessary.

Homeschooling offers a unique opportunity to create a home that grounds our children in all that is good and true and beautiful before exposing them to the outside world. Seton has always sought to provide that homeschooling haven by laying the foundation for families to have the best homeschool experience possible.

Lesson plans, counselors, online resources, and forums all seek to provide parents and students the tools to make learning as approachable and enjoyable as possible. When your lesson plans are already written up, you can choose how you are going to allow them to serve your homeschool needs.

This allows for ample time to build your family culture and create some memories. Board games, outside play, reading for pleasure, cooking, crafting, and creating are all ways to lay the foundations of a cozy home life and strong family connections.

Creating an Inviting Home

It generally falls to the mother to create the atmosphere in the home. Atmosphere doesn’t really refer to décor (although that can be part of it), but rather the feeling that, when in this place with these people, you are at peace. It’s a refuge from the world, a soft place to land.

Mothers are uniquely wired to do this in many ways. Creating an inviting home where people are comfortable and happy means that children can spread their wings and truly explore what God wills for them as they get older. Does this mean there is never conflict? That all is idyllic and the children learn readily, obey always, and clean their rooms daily with diligence and cheer? I wish.

Homeschooling does not guarantee perfection but it does allow us to form our children’s minds and consciences properly using our faith as a guide.

Parents who send their children to brick and mortar schools may have the best of intentions. They may rigorously restrict the media within the home, the friends their children associate with, the books they read in the home, and the speech that they use.

However, when a child is out of the home for six to seven hours a day, all bets are off. Parents then have considerably less control over what their children ingest over the course of their education.

The child may not have access to certain television and movies within the home, but those who do have that access are likely to share it with that child. The call of the worldly is strong and society wants your child to belong.

It wants your child to embrace the ethics of social media and the morals of contemporary society, and to reject those who interfere with doing what society demands.

Why We Homeschool

When we bring our children home to educate them, particularly when using Seton, they are grounded in good theology, excellent writing, the habit of thinking deeply and often (a lost skill to be sure), and the love of their family. They form solid relationships with those who love them best and they learn to serve those in need before they even know that’s what they are doing.

Diapering a baby, folding some laundry, pushing a stroller for mom, carrying grocery bags are all ways in which children serve. They will not learn this from a teacher who doesn’t love them, nor will they be inclined to it if they are away from family for seven hours a day.

Seton mom Tara Brelinsky has this to say about homeschooling as a haven,

“We are called to be in the world, but not of it. I firmly believe that homeschooling is God’s antidote to the chaos we are experiencing in the world. It’s a bit of inoculation for each child, a protection we can offer them while they are most vulnerable. In the haven of the Domestic Church, homeschoolers build up their resilience and acquire the skills and formation needed to bring the change this world so desperately needs.”

The next time you are frustrated that your home doesn’t look as nice as you’d like, or your child is having difficulty mastering something or is even misbehaving, don’t lose heart. I have often said the worst day at home is a million times better than the best day at a school, and it’s true.

Bad days aside, your home is your child’s haven, where their thoughts will always return when the world seems cold and chaotic, and the work you do at home will benefit them for all eternity.